The UC Berkeley-owned museum has raised the lion’s share of the $100 million it needs to create a new home for itself on Center Street at Oxford, on the fringes of the Cal campus.

BAM/PFA is set to move from its current location on Bancroft Way into the new space, designed by New York architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro, in early 2016.

Berkeleyside caught up with BAM/PFA Director Lawrence Rinder to find out what the dramatic new building will mean for the museum and for the city of Berkeley.

What the new museum will offer

Rinder lists five key benefits to the new space. ”We will have a seismically safe building,” he said. The reason BAM/PFA needs to move is that in 1997 its current building on Bancroft Way, built in 1970 and designed by Mario Campio, was deemed seismically unsafe by present-day standards.